The September edition features…

On Place, Memory and Melancholy by Corrie MacdonaldAfter the Harvest by Eric BottsNobody Cares | Everybody Understands by Anna KnowlesA Session by Valentina CanoHeaven by Ryan FavataBubble by Linda BrucesmithYou by Ciahnan DarrellHurricane by Charles Bane Jr.Hot Parts of Town | Love for a Regular Night by Colin DoddsSpanish Enthusiast of Erotica by Jordan TammensRemember by Martha KrauszAlone by Wayne F. BurkeDisposals by Daniel HedgerThe Oldest Profession by Luke PeverelleWood by Valentina CanoAutomatic Houses | And Fingerprints Too by Trina GaynonSometimes We Need to Swim by Alexander DrostThe Haze in the Smoke by Cindy MatthewsGrass Valley by Tayne EphraimBecause Bathrooms Are Where We Talk Ourselves In and Out Of Things by Anna KnowlesClarice Beckett by Ross JacksonCover Story by Sue ZuegerDriving by Dominic StevensonUnder Your Feet by Darlene P. CamposThe Conduit by Chris RowleyMusculoskeletal by Atheer Al-Khalfa

The Biology of Luck is a story that bursts onto the page and into your imagination, shimmering with life. From the first page I could tell it was far from just another tale set against a New York City backdrop.

Jacob M. Appel tells the story of Larry Bloom, an unattractive tour guide who is hopelessly in love with charismatic free-spirit, Starshine Hart. Larry has spent the last two years immortalising Starshine in his as-yet unpublished novel, also entitled The Biology of Luck.

Now he’s set to play his trump card. He has a date with Starshine and an envelope from a publishing house in his pocket.

The novel takes the reader on a journey through the day leading up to the date, alternating between Larry’s perspective and chapters from his manuscript. Here’s where it gets tricky. Larry’s novel tells the story of Starshine’s life on the day leading up to the date, the day he feels he will win her heart. The result teams whimsy, grit and metafiction in a spunky metropolitan fairy tale.

Creative Nonfiction is seeking new essays about ‘waiting’ – stories of delays, postponements and pauses that explore our relationship with time. There will be a $1000 award for the best essay, but please be aware that there is a substantial reading fee. Submissions close September 22.

Kill Your Darlings is open for pitches and submissions for its print edition and online blog. A few topics the editors are particularly interested in at the moment include literary censorship vs. the use of sexual imagery to sell books, and the racial politics surrounding Nicki Minaj (writers of colour are especially welcomed to pitch on this topic).

Tiny Owl Workshop is seeking Christmas-themed flash fiction by Australian writers inspired by the Krampus myth. The twelve chosen stories will be distributed around Brisbane inside illustrated Christmas crackers.

Tincture Journal is seeking fiction, scripts or screenplays and creative non-fiction for its December edition. While pieces can be anywhere from 100 to 20,000 words, 2000 to 5000 words is a good target.

In It For The Long Scrawl, a literary mag created by teens, is keen to publish work by writers aged between 13 and 18. Submissions close August 15.

All the Best, a weekly Aussie radio show, is looking for very short fiction in which your city or home town is destroyed in an apocalypse. An excerpt will be played on the radio and the rest will be published on their website. Send your stories to ep@allthebestradio.combefore August 16 to be considered.

The Shoe Alternative, a website designed to help women figure out what they want to do with their lives, is looking for fiction, articles, interviews, reviews, artwork and more based around the theme ‘Dare to Dream.’ Submissions are open until the end of September.

Overland is looking for pitches on several nonfiction topics, including racial discrimination in dating and payment for writers. Accepted pieces will be published on the online magazine. When pitching, you should explain your article in 50 words and come up with a realistic deadline.

Tupulo Press is open for submissions of book-length and chapbook-length poetry until Thursday July 31. Published works will be distributed across the United States, but poets of any nationality are welcome to enter.

In celebration of The Stella Prize, the Suburban Review will be releasing an issue called the Stellar Edition to celebrate the literary feats of women. The deadline for submissions of short fiction, poetry, artwork and photography is Sunday August 3. They’re running a Pozible campaign that will allow them to pay all contributors $100, so if you’d like to donate, see the website for details.

And of course Ricochet is still accepting submissions of poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, reviews, artwork and photography until Friday August 1.

In case you haven’t heard of it, Pitch, Bitch! is a brilliant new initiative that encourages young female writers to pitch their work for publication.

It was established as a community for female writers who may feel inadequate about their writing prowess, in comparison to male peers who, anecdotally at least, aren’t as discouraged by rejection. The first Wednesday of every month has been designated Pitch, Bitch day, and those who participate can use the #pitchbitch hashtag on Twitter to post about their achievements.

With all that on hand, it can still be hard to know where to send your pitch, particularly when you want to get paid and there are so many not-for-profit and volunteer-based publications out there. Who Pays Writers in Australia? is a good place to start – writers anonymously post pay rates for popular commercial websites and print publications, and there are notes of caution about late payers and tricksy organisations, so you can tread in knowing what to expect. It’s a few years old but the Emerging Writers’ Festival also has a list of pay rates for various magazines and websites.

In honour of tomorrow’s #pitchbitch day, we’ve put together a list of publications that do pay, and a breakdown of the subjects they are interested in (some were hard to pigeonhole, so they’ve been slotted into several categories).